The European Commission may have lost its court case about Apple’s $14.8 billion tax bill, but it continues to believe that it’s morally in the right.
“We do not consider it normal that the largest corporates get away with paying one percent tax at most,” European Commission executive vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters in the aftermath.
Apple faces another antitrust complaint in the European Union, this time from Japanese tech company Rakuten. The anti-competition complaint relates to Apple’s e-book business, the Financial Times reported Tuesday.
In response, the EU opened an official investigation into the App Store. On Tuesday, EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said the government will scrutinize Cupertino’s business practices. “We need to ensure that Apple’s rules do not distort competition in markets where Apple is competing with other app developers, for example with its music streaming service Apple Music or with Apple Books,” Vestager said. “I have therefore decided to take a close look at Apple’s App Store rules and their compliance with EU competition rules.”
Tile, a startup that makes location-aware tracking tags, told the European Commission’s Competition department that Apple isn’t playing fair. It claims the iPhone maker has moved to “completely disadvantage” its smaller rival, even as Apple prepares to launch its own tracking tags.
The accessory maker told the U.S. government the same thing earlier this year.
The European Commission doesn’t want its staff using WhatsApp or iMessage for internal communications. Instead, they must start using end-to-end-encrypted messaging app Signal as part of a push toward greater security.
“Signal has been selected as the recommended application for public instant messaging,” noted an instruction that reportedly appeared on internal EC messaging boards in early February.
Margrethe Vestager, head of the European Commission’s Competition department, has handed out giant fines to tech companies — such as Apple’s massive $14.5 billion bill in 2016.
But a new report suggests that Vestager isn’t done with tech companies by a long shot. In fact, the next several years could make the previous five look uneventful for Silicon Valley companies.
In August, EU antitrust investigators sent a questionnaire to banks and developers of rival payment systems about Apple Pay. They’ve gotten an earful, according to Margrethe Vestager, the EU Competition Commissioner.
European antitrust regulators are asking online retailers if they are contractually obligated to use Apple Pay over rival services.
The European Commission suggests it has information that Apple could have restricted online payments for goods and services using rival payment solutions. This would be in breach of EU antitrust rules.
Apple Pay, the iPhone’s built-in payment system, is reportedly in the sights of EU investigators. They are looking into whether Apple is giving its system an unfair advantage over competitors.
Apple has received a glimpse of hope in its giant $14.4 billion tax battle against the EU. On Tuesday, the European Commission’s similar tax case against Starbucks collapsed. The EC claimed that Starbucks had received an unfair sweetheart tax deal in the Netherlands. The European Commission’s General Court overturned this earlier 2015 decision.
But another case against Fiat Chrysler concluded with the European court saying that it had enjoyed preferential tax treatment in Luxembourg.
Apple says that the European Commission doesn’t understand its business — and places way too much emphasis on the importance of its Irish divisions.
The accusation was made on the second day of Apple’s court hearing to appeal its $14.4 billion tax bill.
